by Candra French-Teshome

Created on: November 07, 2009

PROLOGUE

North America

The cold rain pelted his face as he searched eternally for the end of the road. Heavy mist coaxed by the rising of the sun clung to his skin as it hung in the air. They appeared sienna in color and riddled with age, having sheltered the most innocent of creatures. The rain ceased briefly and the sun cast shadow through their deep green foliage as it graced his face and fell onto the trodden earth below. Then, it was gone again.

There had been many years of difficult decision, painful deceit and mislead moral reliance before the fork appeared, so briefly at first, through the fog; of his mind, his soul, or his eyes? This was one of many to appear, some disguised, some not. , the textured beauty of the old and knowing oaks lined the street of this road he had never traveled, so wise having the banter of travelers like him over one hundred years or more in their wake, in their sleep. Travelers like me confused by time and experience lost by lack of knowledge of the complex paradox life IS.

There at the end of all things, he still did not know: Which fork was right? Which fork was just? Which fork was just a fork in the road?

His effort to revive his confidence caused his fingers to experience the crack riddled trunk of a particular oak. His fingers moved along, each moving slowly across the rough exterior which sheltered the vulnerable core of the oak, drawn to the deep variations in color; sienna mottled by gray and near black with a moss covered vine creeping up the left side like an old friend in trouble again.

Those representations of growth allowed him to realize his own, as he traveled the road. So much like him they were their strength, endurance, resilience, anger, frustration and triumph over life's intrusion upon their plans. Planned growth and planned progress, plans that never panned out. Plans carried by the wind they were spoken on, becoming dreams, then stories, then myths and legends which scarred the mind as they passed to history and were conveyed to generations that followed. Plans dropped like the seed of the oak tree to the eager foundation of a world resurrected from the depths of moral death.

Yet with their mighty stance, appearing as soldiers with a distant past guarding the most precious of secrets; reckoning defeat, contemplating solitude in their destruction, accepting conquer though having fought precisely for their belief, they straightened his spirit, strengthened his soul, guiding him effortlessly by standing, nurturing, calming his mind, with precision they lined and with precision they had defied, surviving ages of torment by nature and by man and by life their own, buckling the very sidewalk of progress. Shall he survive? He asked, there at the end of all things.

Finally, he saw the mysterious address wrangled from his pocket then as it was many, many years ago on yellowed linen paper, at the end of the road. A small man, at least his age, bent by the caress of time with a face damaged by the scars of years of knowing waved at him from the red door of a Victorian home just as experienced as he.

"Genoa Fearce?" he whispers.

"Yes" he said a bit weary.

"I'm Lionel Lived. It is good to finally meet you. Why don't you come in? We have quite a bit to discuss and time has been borrowed."

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